EndersGame wrote:I particularly appreciate it when there's a combination of written and visual materials.

I fully agree, particularly when the videos come from the author of the book. Roberto Giobbi and Michael Close come to mind here.

Explanations aside, I think it's also great to simply see the author perform his pieces. What a great way to experience the look and feel of a routine, its flow and duration, etc.! This can tremendously help in making your purchase decision.

Take, for example, Switzerland's Christian Scherer's big book of original magic in German, "Schlaglichter" ("Bright Lights"). It is accompanied by a website (http://www.schlaglichter.ch/schre/index ... f=1&i=home) that features performance videos of all routines for close-up, parlor, and stage featured in his book (almost 30 in total).

I wished more authors would go this extra mile!

New magic books, exhibitions, and musings: Have a look at our magic blog,http://www.zzzauber.comAdvancing the art in magic one post at a time (yeah, right!)

It can be very useful to see someone perform a move on video if they do it well so from that learning point of view it can be a very good thing. The trouble is that for me personally seeing an author performing his piece is highly likely (with a few exceptions) to turn me off the trick completely.

For a variety of reasons, I prefer books in general. However, DVDs have several advantages. One such advantage is that you can see the effect performed before you know the method.

There’s an effect in Five Times Five (Japan) which I read. I thought that that the method seemed obvious. Yet each time I perform it, it gets a good reaction. And each time I perform it, it makes me wish that that I’d seen it performed before I’d read it, in order that I could appreciate why it gets that reaction.

It’s not just me that thinks that way. Many years ago I wandered into Davenports and they demo-ed an effect. Wow, that’s amazing, I bought it on the spot. They said that they weren’t sure how good an effect it was, since such effects are usually supplied with a demo video that they watch first. But this one hadn’t, so they’d simply read the instructions and performed it. I assured them that it was good. (And I still perform it.)

And of course it’s possible that when you buy a book you’ve already seen performances of most of the effects in it. But I’d think that unlikely.

performer wrote:I agree with him. However the irony of it all is he is telling us all that in a video!

I don't find that ironic. If he wrote his opinion only those of us who already appreciate the written word would have access to his opinion. Using a video medium he might connect with some of those who rely too heavily on DVDs. They may pick up a book and learn something about themselves and magic that they can't find on a DVD.

You are correct. I just found it funny! In any event I far prefer books. They are far more convenient for one thing. DVDs and videos are such a hassle to watch. And 90% of the time the performer is bloody awful even if the material is wonderful. It does discourage the learning process somewhat. At least when you read a book you don't know how crap the author is at performing so you can be more objective about it.

performer wrote:You are correct. I just found it funny! In any event I far prefer books. They are far more convenient for one thing. DVDs and videos are such a hassle to watch.

It is funny.There is a price for being illiterate. The price of illiteracy is less material at a greater cost. Every time the technology changes you have to buy a new device to watch new material. And you have to hope that your old VCR player out lasts the tapes you already own. The technology of the written word has changed, but at a much slower pace. Clay and stone tablets, to scrolls, to books, to e-books. The printed books are the best. Lighter, easier to use and not subject to electrical issues like the others.

I DETEST e-books! I will never read one. I think they are horrible things against the laws of nature. Ironically I have a few of my own on Amazon. I have never actually seen them in that form myself. God alone knows what they look like!

I am not sure technology is such an advantage. I used to give cassette tapes of my psychic readings to my clients but nobody has tape recorders any more so I can't do that now. It is an infernal nuisance. Some of my psychic colleagues went on to give CDs instead. I was about to purchase an expensive recorder for that but now I find that CDs are becoming obsolete and don't always play in people's computers any more. So the next thing I tried was to get people to record the readings on their phone but half the time they don't know how to work their own phone so I have just given up. The old fashioned cassette tapes worked very well but this awful technology is a backward step and I would far prefer it if it didn't exist. I detest cell phones and I was about to purchase a phone jammer so I could get some peace from them until I found out it was illegal.

You'll know you are getting good at reading magic when you know for sure that you caught a typo when the book says 'right hand' when it should have been 'left hand'. This happens a lot actually. Guilty parties shall remain nameless. They are legion. When you are starting out, you think there is something wrong with YOU. Later you can KNOW, oh, another typo.

It used to be that getting a book printed cost so much money people would hire others to edit their books. Often multiple people were involved. Few great magicians were also good illustrators. (RK and Tom Gagnon spring to mind)

The editor and illustrator would catch errors and improve the product. The sheer effort in planning, laying out and designing a complete book allows for the possibility of generating quality. One guy with a video camera can create a DVD or online video in a matter of hours. You get a significantly better thought out product in a book. I'd like to say there were notable exceptions. They're freaking are not any exceptions. There are still crappy magic books. It's almost impossible to match the crapulence of most magic videos.

I love books like Josh Jay's overlap, The Long Goodbye and the Bertini book that have video to augment the book.

Buy books and encourage the people that produce them to keep producing them or we will be left with a morass of URLs and links to crap video. Stem the tide by buying books. Quit buying videos. We'll have better magic for it.

But Kent, I learn better from video. I'm a visual learner. Yry learning from a book, you might suprise yourself. I spent sixteen year teaching for the US Navy or Nikon. I've written thousands of pages of instructional material. Some of the topics were as dry as a popcorn fart. Learning complex concepts, like how digital circuits really work or how a wafer stage and a reticle stage interact when printing ICs can be and is taught via written manuals.

These are just card tricks. Buck up. Pick up your copy of Erdnase and read the instructions, try it, re-read the instructions, repeat. If it was easy we'd all be David Roth or Ed Kwon.

Just for the record, if you ask a professional teacher like me what is the best way to learn anything, we will tell you that 1) different people learn best through different modalities, and 2) different subjects are best taught through different modalities. Anybody who says Books are better is wrong. Anyone who says Videos are better is wrong. This is all very basic stuff.

Pete McCabe wrote:Just for the record, if you ask a professional teacher like me what is the best way to learn anything, we will tell you that 1) different people learn best through different modalities, and 2) different subjects are best taught through different modalities. Anybody who says Books are better is wrong. Anyone who says Videos are better is wrong. This is all very basic stuff.

Yes--exactly.

I am (foolishly) trying to learn some Rubik's cube magic. Even though I'm a book guy at heart, it's so much easier learning this from video because the 3D spatial requirements are so much easier to comprehend.

Eventually, I think this argument will evolve to Virtual Reality learning vs. books.

PS: Eugene Burger wrote about another augmented way to learn from books. He suggested to record yourself reading the book then learn the routine while listening to the recording with props in hand. That way, your hands are free to manipulate objects, plus you are using another sense to help learn the material.

Don’t know much about Kwon so I googled him. One of the reasons I read this forum is to motivate research, a thinking prompt if you will. Anyway I was immediately struck by the power of this quote on a magic podcast site: “ Due to the lack of magic books in Korea, Ed taught himself English in order to read magic books.“

I think English speaking countries have always had an embarrassment of riches when it comes to magic books.

Great, now I'm going now I'm going to argue witn Pete McCabe. Ironically Mr. McCabe wrote a BOOK that helped me with my magic more than any other title I've read as an aged adult.

I despise the concept of learning modalities. Its the type of spineless nonsense pushed by education departments at state colleges. Real teachers (and ny real teachers I mean people like Gary Plants, James Riser and . . . Pete McCabe)

I despise the concept of learning modalities. Its the type of twaddle that is extraneous to this discusdion.

I know Ed and Gary fairly well. They were both public schoolteachers and are both fabulous magicians. Pete, I know primarily through his writings. I've only spoken to, him too briefly at magic conventions. James Riser I don't know, except through his website. I do know James has treated me with great contempt and derision, via email twice. This makes me even more certain he's an expert.

Look over James' career on his website. The.love he has for teaching and the innovations he used are truly impressive.

Public school teachers are great. I know their pay is lacking. Teachers are paid so poorly I hesitate to call it a profession. It's a calling.

I was trained to teach by the Navy's Nuclear Power program. I taught in Orlando for eight years: podium, chalk and lesson plans. We taught four hours a day. Then I taught in industry for another ten years.

Teachers will use and should use all the tools they can to get their information into their students heads. If you have animations, diagrams or other visual tools, awesome: my teaching bretheren, use them.

Learning magic is not an instructor-driven process. It is student-driven. You already have someone extremely motivated to learn. This student has spent money on instructional material. They should get to pick whatever the hell they want to use. Oh, and they will.

Blathering about modalities or whining about being a visual learner is all horsefeed, or it's what the horsefeed turns into.

Books aren't better than video because of any tool being better or worse. They're better because except for Dan and Dave's products and Liwag's two coin videos, magic videos are utter crap. They're poorly produced, because it's so easy to crank them out.

I resisted the concept of learning modalities when I first encountered them while getting one of my degrees in education. However, it is undeniably true that different people learn differently, and one type of difference is how they best process information.

I am a visual learner.

That means I learn well from books.

(Most people get his part wrong when ascribing qualities to the various modalities. A visual learner often sees the words written on the page and organizes their thoughts in visual manners.)

I have a VERY difficult time learning from a demonstration. I just can’t do it. I attribute to a combination of having to split focus between the sound, the constant motion of the instruction, and my lack of natural kinesthetic talents.

I see now how my particular experience is really well explained by how we all rely on different modalities to different degrees.

So I can’t see what the controversy is conceptually.

What I DO see (not here, but elsewhere) is people who try to rationalize either displeasure/lack of skill of reading (or laziness.).

So they claim they are a ‘visual learner’

Here’s the reality: different people learn better differently. One difference is the way they process information. However reading magic books can be challenging, and most people who do magic are in it for easy gratification and not the rigors of work.

Not all, but most.

So we see people use ‘modalities’ to Justify watching magic shows where at the end you get to be entertained by being shown the secrets.

Videos tend to expose the performer, both as a person and as a performer. This craft, if you will, is loaded with self important, pompous jackasses and watching them on video can only serve to confirm that and make what they say completely meaningless.

Having said that, if one takes the time to weed through the videos and eliminate those people, you will have far fewer to watch, but the ones left can be gold. Just like using the ignore button here. You have a LOT less to read, buot what is left can be helpful, insightful and produces very little gas.

Mr. Mills makes a great point. Some material reads poorly, but looks amazing and vice-versa. Seeing it in action from the creator can sometimes help evaluate it more accurately. There are caveats, of course, especially when the creator isn't a strong performer.